Tag: Student Debt

In case you missed it, tuition at Saskatchewan universities is rising faster than anywhere else in the country. From CBC:

Saskatchewan university students have been hit with the highest tuition increases in Canada this year, a new Statistics Canada report says. According to the StatsCan report released Thursday, undergraduate tuition for the 2013-2014 academic year went up 4.7 per cent in Saskatchewan — the highest percentage increase of all provinces. All provinces saw increases, with the exception of Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador, which were under a tuition freeze. Tuition in Manitoba went up 1.6 per cent. The national inflation rate over the same period was about 1.3 per cent. Saskatchewan’s tuition increases for graduate students (4.9 per cent) and international students (6.7 per cent) were also the highest in Canada.

But that’s the country we live in. Over 20 years the Chretien and Martin Liberals and Harper Conservatives built a nation where advanced education is increasingly not affordable. (We also live in a country where the gap between the rich and the rest of us is always growing, but these things just happen. It’s not like government policies tend to favour the wealthy.)

You know, Prairie Dog ran a 5,000 word feature on student debt recently — in fact, it’s in the current issue. You should read it. And after you read it, you could leave a comment, or perhaps even write a signed letter to the editor (300 words max).

I mean, if anyone cares; if we as a society want university and college education to be affordable. Maybe we don’t.

As one commentator says, “Who really cares if the educated have trouble accepting the facts of life? Fact is, I have no debt, make fantastic money, and never went to school.”